How Vidyanidhi Was Started

Vidyanidhi began as a pilot project in the year 2000 with support from NISSAT, DSIR, Govt. of India and demonstrated the feasibility of the e-Theses program in India. With support from the Ford Foundation and also from Microsoft India, Vidyanidhi is evolving as a National Initiative.
The Ford Foundation support is specifically for focusing on doctoral theses in Social and Human Sciences.
The Microsoft support is for the implementation of Unicode for Indian Languages.
Vidyanidhi is a member of the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD), http://www.ndltd.org, a global initiative with more than 170 members from different countries of the world.
Vidyanidhi is also part of UNESCO (http://www.unesco.org/webworld/etd and http://etdguide.org ) efforts in this direction. Unesco supports ETD initiatives worldwide.

To evolve as a National repository and a collaborative consortium of participating universities and academic institutions.
To evolve as an online resource and a technical mechanism for the creation, submission, archiving, and accessing of Indian theses.

Develop a repository for Indian doctoral theses.
Digitize, archive and improve access to doctoral theses in India,
Make theses available online (as per the restrictions desired by the Doctoral Students) and help enhance the visibility of Indian Doctoral Research,
Offer tools and resources to strengthen and augment the research capacities of doctoral students and universities,
Enhance the quality of doctoral research in India by developing and using standard formats and templates,
Mould ‘best practices’ in scholarship and scholarly writing among students,
Prepare the doctoral students in e-publishing, e-scholarship, and digital libraries by offering training programs and online tutorials.

Digitize your theses collection following a mutually agreed workflow.
Archive your theses collection according to global standards and specifications.
Catalog your theses collection and integrate the same with Vidyanidhi’s Indian Theses Database.
One copy of each thesis of your University in electronic/CD format will be given to your university and in addition, your students and faculty can have access to the same online at our website (…[email protected]).
Train your students in e-thesis preparation and digital libraries.
Offer access to many resources and tools- such as RefWorks- software for managing references for preparing a bibliography for theses and research papers.
Offer templates and samples for the writing of a thesis – so that these conform to standard practices.
Offer a variety of options with respect to access to theses, which is defined by the concerned University/Doctoral students/Guides. The options include:
Offer all the above at no financial burden to your university.

Sign a Memorandum of Understanding with Vidyanidhi,
Require to submit Electronic version of Thesis along with the print version and incorporate the same in the Ph.D. rules and regulations of the University,
Follow a small number of mandatory standards with reference to formats and other aspects of theses,
Identify and designate an official/faculty of the university to be the coordinator for this collaborative project,
Facilitate the retrospective conversion of theses by providing access to your theses collection,
Facilitate the cataloging of your thesis collection by the Vidyanidhi team,
Identify and select doctoral research students for participation in the training program

Every registered Ph.D student can register in Vidyanidhi to benefit from the services and facilities offered by Vidyanidhi.

Vidyanidhi welcomes you to fill out our metadata input templates and get included in our database.
Vidyanidhi will enable students to deposit their theses and archive them from anywhere, anytime.
Vidyanidhi is your publishing partner.
You do not have to physically carry your thesis wherever you go you can just access it anytime from anywhere.
Your theses will be available for access and use by future researchers, generations after generations.

Copyrights of these rest with the authors of theses.
Students are free to publish their theses.
The University/doctoral students/Guides can define the restrictions of access to their theses.
Vidyanidhi will honor the wishes of the students/advisers regarding any restrictions that they may have regarding the level of access to their theses.

Also Read: Vidyanidhi – Indian Education Digital Library

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